“Not a lot of won battles, won races … just not the hockey we want to play. We have to be proud of what we’re doing here — that team (Calgary) is doing it,” said Hall. “We’re the Oilers, we get paid a lot of money to do this. We have to come and put our hard-hats on, work and compete and see what happens. We can do as many systems as we want and we can practice, but it comes down to battles.”

Not sure if hard-hats would’ve helped the Oilers but goals and better defense and goaltending from Nikolai Khabibulin would’ve done a world of good against the Flames.

We know they’re a young team and the ups and downs will happen, but losing five in a row after reaching eighth place for a day makes for a disheartening tease. Getting outscored 17-4 over those five games means they’re not doing much of anything right in the end.